Has the Solar Minimum Counteracted Man-Made Warming?

The sun

Decreasing solar irradiance between 2002 and 2008 has countered most of the anthropogenic (man-made) warming of the earth's surface, according to new research that was published in the Geophysical Research Letters.

Two researchers, Judith Lean (NRL) and David Rind (NASA/GISS) looked at four drivers of climate change and showed graphs of how much each has contributed to the changing temperature of the earth's surface since 1980.

The four drivers.........

1. Volcanic aerosols- cooling influence
2. El Nino- warming influence
3. Greenhouse gases- warming influence
4. Solar cycle- variable influence.

You can check out the graphs right here, courtesy of Spaceweather.com. The article is about halfway down the page.

Lean and Rind also offered a future prediction of temperatures in the abstract.......

From 2009 to 2014, projected rises in anthropogenic influences and solar irradiance will increase global surface temperature 0.15 +/- 0.03 C, at a rate 50% greater than predicted by IPCC. But as a result of declining solar activity in the subsequent five years, average temperature in 2019 is only 0.03 +/- 0.01 C warmer than in 2014. This lack of overall warming is analogous to the period from 2002 to 2008 when decreasing solar irradiance also countered much of the anthropogenic warming.